


ugly crier

by cinabrese



Series: Nole Fati [1]
Category: Fairy Tail
Genre: Gen, first gen fluff, mavis vermillion and the terrible horrible no good very bad day, until it's not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-25
Updated: 2015-10-25
Packaged: 2018-04-28 00:41:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5071273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cinabrese/pseuds/cinabrese
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>sometimes all you need is a little pick me up</p>
            </blockquote>





	ugly crier

Mavis Vermillion was not having a good day. 

To begin with, she had nearly gotten her head bit off by a giant spider. It wasn’t her idea of a leisurely morning. Not to mention that she had woken up before dawn to avoid the oversized bug and still managed to run into it, so there was three hours of sleep down the drain. And when the spider had finally been killed (courtesy of Precht), its silk had turned out to be stickier than they originally thought. It had gotten stuck in Mavis’s hair, on her clothing, on her bag, and anywhere on Precht that may have touched her in his attempt to free her. They had salvaged all the silk they could and trudged back to the client’s mansion, only to have their tired, sticky, and sorry selves told that he wouldn’t pay the rest of their fee because Mavis had _“Soiled the silk! Completely and utterly ruined! I can’t work with this. I knew I should have called Phantom Lord!”_

And with that blow to their ego, Mavis and Precht had been sent on their merry way home. 

And now it was raining. 

So no, Mavis Vermillion was not having a bad day. She was having an _awful day_.

Naturally, she had to let Precht know. 

“This is awful,” she told him.

“That’s the seventh time you’ve said that,” he replied.

And so, after realizing that Precht wouldn’t say anything else, Mavis was left with monotonous silence until they neared the edge of the East Forest. In the shortest route back to Magnolia, but not the easiest, the forest abruptly gave way to the rolling hills of the lake territory. Consequently, there were less trees near the edge than in the thick of the forest, and the ground could turn from mossy and slippery to hard and rocky in a heartbeat. 

Precht stopped walking abruptly, and Mavis, who had kept her eyes trained on the ground and her footing, grunted as she ran into his back.

“A little warning next time,” she complained, rubbing her nose. Precht held out a hand and shushed her. “What?” Mavis whispered. “Do you hear something?” She strained to listen, but with the rain falling on the stone and the few trees that grew here, nothing could be heard.

Precht nodded, brows drawing together as he concentrated. “But it sounds like,” he paused, shifting so he was looking back the way they had come, “it’s coming from behind us.” Mavis turned to look and scanned the path they had taken. It was a trail only found by traversing it frequently, and only to a trained eye could the path markers be seen. The path stretched up and back into the forest proper, until it disappeared over a hill. 

“I don’t hear _or_ see anything-” Mavis cut herself off as the ground began to shake underneath her feet. She stared at the pebbles below her, watching as they trembled and bounced around. Slowly, she looked back up at Precht, who met her gaze, and then back up the path over the headland and into the forest.

Through the rain, animalistic figures came into view. They pounded down the bluff in a frenzy, as if the hounds of hell were chasing them.

“Gorian,” Mavis swore at the same time Precht scooped her up and said, “Let’s go!”

It wasn’t the first time one of her guildmates decided that it would be faster to carry her, and it probably wouldn’t be the last, but Mavis could hope. 

So Mavis’s already awful day became considerably worse when Precht stepped into a puddle that wasn’t so much a puddle as it was a pit of mud, sent her flying into more mud, and had the Gorian congregate around them. 

“This-”

“Don’t say it.”

_“This is awful!”_

Precht groaned.

Mavis swiped at her face in an attempt to clear the mud from her eyes. In doing this, she came face to face with a Gorian. With a shrill shriek, Mavis scuttled backward, only to have the creature eagerly follow after her. 

“I think,” Precht grunted as he kicked at a Gorian leering at his arm, “they’re after the spider silk.”

“Noted,” Mavis replied, swatting at the beast closest to her as it reached out to grasp at her hair. “But we very well can’t take a bath right here to get it off of us.”

Precht sidled closer to Mavis and eyed her bag. “Give that to me,” he said, pointing at it.

“What?” Mavis cried. “No! This was payment from the guild master of Sylph Labyrinth.” She began talking faster as Precht tugged the bag over her head. “It’s magical artifact, Precht, it can store almost any sized object, you can’t just throw it away-!” Mavis stopped talking as Precht hurled the bag over a rock formation. The Gorian, blessedly, followed it and left the wizards alone.

Precht’s gaze slid to his guild master. It was hard to look intimidating when you barely reached five foot and were covered from head to toe in mud, but Precht learned long ago that looks could be deceiving. 

“I’ll get you another bag,” he gulped, offering Mavis a hand as he stood up. She eyed him darkly before accepting his hand and hauling herself to her feet.

“They’re not cheap,” she said loftily.

“I know,” Precht sighed defeatedly.

“Will you carry me back?”

“Will you bring up the bag again today?”

Mavis thought about it. “Not if you promise to fully clean and dust the library with me tomorrow.”

Precht grimaced at the thought, but turned his back to Mavis. “Fine. You can get on at the bottom of the cliff. I’m not climbing down with you on my back.”

Mavis looked pointedly at their muddy clothes. “After what just happened, I don’t _want_ you to carry me down the cliff.”

“Ungrateful brat,” Precht grumbled as they began walking once more.

* * *

    “Hey,” Mavis chittered, poking Precht’s shoulder. “Hey, hey, _hey_ , Precht, hey, Mr. Gaebolg. Hey, Precht! _Precht!_ ”

    “I swear I’m going to drop you,” Precht ground out. They had just turned onto the guild’s street. The rain let up after their run in with the Gorian, and as a result the mud that was left on their clothing was beginning to dry and stiffen.

    “Good!” Mavis wriggled in his grasp. “Because I want to get down. If you listened to me, you would know that. But you kept ignoring me when I was trying to talk to you!”

Precht released his hold on her with a grateful sigh. “Maybe if you hadn’t talked my ear off the entire way into town, I’d be more inclined to listen to what you have to say.”

Mavis huffed, sticking her tongue out at him. “You’re just mean and _bo-oring_.”

Precht snickered. “How old are you, five?”

Mavis rolled her eyes and mimicked him in a high pitched voice. “And what are you?” she asked when she was finished. “My mother?”

“No,” Precht responded gravely. “We have Yuriy for that.”

The street rang with Mavis’s bright laughter as they reached their guildhall. Precht smiled down at her as he pushed open the door for the both of them, leaving a muddy handprint on the wood.

“Oh?” Mavis grinned. “Was that a smile I saw? On Precht Gaebolg? I never thought I’d see the day!” She poked his side as they walked in. Turned to him as she was, Mavis never took note of what the guildhall looked like.

“Hey, they’re back!” 

Hearing the interjection, Mavis dropped her hand and turned to face the rest of the hall. “What-” she began, only to be cut off by the entire guild.

“Happy birthday, Mavis!” The entirety of Fairy Tail shouted.

Mavis stared at her guildmates. Numbly, she looked from the members to the decorations above and around them, to Precht, who grinned at her and ruffled her hair, and back at all of her guildmates. Her vision blurred and she knew her face was becoming blotchy and red like it always did when she cried. She tried to smile through the hiccups that were rising in her chest, but gave up as soon as the tears started to fall. She ducked her head into her hands in an attempt to save face, but it wasn’t very hard to tell what was happening by the way her body shook and the loud hiccups she managed to choke out. 

As one, the guild dissolved into consoling chatter.

“Aw, Mave,” Yuriy groaned. “Did you really have to cry? Again?”

“Shush!” Rita hissed, smacking her husband. “Be supportive!”

“I _am_ supportive, Reets.”

“Warrod!” Precht exclaimed. “Why are you crying?”

Warrod blew into the handkerchief he held. “Because it’s so touching!” He offered Mavis, who was trying to wipe away her tears and snot with her arm, a handkerchief from his pocket. She accepted it gratefully and wiped at her eyes and blew her nose.

She stared at the cloth forlornly for a few moments before looking at Warrod. “Do you want it back?” she asked. The two stared at each other before Mavis dissolved into tearful laughter, and Warrod laughed his deep belly laugh a second later.

“Mavis!” said a small voice at Mavis’s feet. Mavis blinked away what tears remained and grinned down at Makarov, who beamed back up at her.

“Hey, buddy!” Mavis cooed, leaning down and scooping the toddler up. “How’s my favorite Dreyar?”

“Hey!” Yuriy and Rita protested in tandem. 

Makarov giggled as Mavis planted kisses all over his face. She rested him on her hip and made faces in an attempt to get him to fully laugh. He didn’t seem to mind her splotchy face, red eyes, and tear-stained cheeks, and soon broke out into squealing laughter.

“He’s actually supposed to be taking a nap right now,” Rita spoke up. “But I’m guessing _someone_ ,” she fixed her gaze on Yuriy, “didn’t put him down. Even though that someone knows that he gets cranky if his nap schedule is disrupted.”

Mavis looked at Makarov and gasped. “Makkie, your mama says that you have to go to sleep. Goodbye, Makkie,” she kissed his cheek. “See you when you wake up.” Rita took her son and walked away from the loud group to the sanctity of the library turned guildhall nursery, shooting Yuriy a dirty look as Makarov started crying.

Her husband smiled crookedly at her as she left. Once his family was out of view, he turned to Mavis and pulled her to his side. “You’re such a pain,” he lamented.

“You’re a giant ass,” Mavis sniffled.

“Hey,” Yuriy frowned as he ruffled her hair. “I am a _treasure_.”

“You sure are something,” Precht said dryly.

“Why,” Yuriy moaned, dropping his arm from around Mavis’s shoulders, “does everyone gang up on _me_?” Mavis laughed at Yuriy’s protests and he reeled her into a bone crushing hug. “But really, Mave, do you _always_ have to cry when we throw you a birthday party?”

Mavis wiped her nose on Yuriy’s shirt, and when he tried to push her out of the hug she clung to his arm. “Every time you throw me a party I get so happy that I can only express it through tears.”

“You’re an ugly crier,” Yuriy gagged, still trying to get her off his arm. 

“Also,” Mavis added, stepping back from him and wiping her eyes again, “I was having a really bad day, and seeing all of you….” She sighed and a happy smile graced her features. “It reminds me that I’ll always have a family to come back to.”

“Aw, man,” Yuriy said, beginning to snivel himself. “You’re so _sappy_.”

“I learned from the best,” Mavis laughed weakly as Warrod gathered the four of them into a giant hug. 

They stood in silence for a few moments, content to know that they had each other for support whenever they needed it. Then, Yuriy broke the silence, saying, “You’re still an ugly crier, though.”

Rita reentered the main hall to find the four cofounders in various states of disarray. Warrod bellowed laughter from a seat at the bar, ale sloshing over the side of the mug, and Precht was attempting to stand up from where he was on the ground, looking dazed and rubbing the back of his head. Someone had overturned the tables and chairs in the center of the room, and Mavis and Yuriy now squared off against each other in the opening. Rita laughed and joined Warrod at the bar, hefting her own mug into the air, not caring about what beer ran down and over the sides.

“Happy birthday, Mavis!” she crowed.

“Happy birthday, Mavis!” the rest of the guild echoed.


End file.
